Audit finds unemployment benefits paid to inmates

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (KRNV & MyNews4.com) -- A legislative audit says the state may have paid up to $5 million in unemployment benefits to inmates in prison or county jails in the last three years.

According to the Las Vegas Sun, the report found 67 inmates illegally received a total of $240,000 in benefits in the fiscal year 2012. In one case, the audit found, two inmates in state prison for more than a year collected a combined $53,000.

Kelly Karch, Deputy Administrator of the Employment Security Division, said new security measures are being put in place to weed out fraud.

I had to walk into the employment office just to FILE all of the places I searched for a job at. I had to every time I was unemployed. I still had to in 2005 before I was disabled. When I went for SSI I had to go through a battery of tests, physically and mentally plus bring in my medical records. The State of Nevada deemed me disabled then transferred me over to SSD which is Federal. So if anything has changed with application of proof between then and now those people are skating the system.

Why should we all be so surprised? The State and Federal Governments are ALL jacked up with mistakes and areas where so many leeches like convicts and pretrail detainees fudge the system..."because they can" and get away with hundreds if not thousands of dollars that will more than likely never get repaid. The funds probably help pay for inmate commissary like noodle soups, candy bars, and all this overpriced B S that these prisons and detention facilities charge on a weekly basis. What a joke but remember you can be an illegal alien and still get a license and get a job or free benefits so this is not a complete shocker to me. WIC, Unemployment, welfare, SSDisibility, etc etc etc.

Now I know why my request for NV UEC was shut down so quickly (I quit at a job where I got harrassed in front of customers by my NEW supervisor ... quitting before I'd end up getting targeted & fired!!)!! We just have to give prisoners MORE rights than folks trying to make it in this crazy world!!

I would think that in this time of highspeed digtal networking and fact that we caqn "tweet" to anyone about anything, post on facebook at the touch of a button. The state could put some type of flaging system on the state computers that when someone is sent to AFTER conviction and entered into the system a red flag would pop up from welfare, unemployment and food stamps, and medicade that this person is not eligable to receive these benifits and they shoud stop. Afterall we will be supporting this person until they are released or die depending n sentence. And we wonder why the state is broke.........

Why has ESD not ALREADY put in controls to preclude this nonsense? This is INEXCUSABLE. Who's running our state agencies? Let's get some COMPETENT leadership in Administration. Our only priority should not be smiling to the Legislature and Budget approval.